Newswise — Opendra "Bill" Narayan, a Distinguished Professor and Chairman of the Department of Microbiology, Molecular Genetics and Immunology at the University of Kansas Medical Center School of Medicine, and a leading AIDS researcher died Dec. 24 following a heart attack. He was 71.
Dr. Narayan was a passionate and brilliant researcher who made countless contributions to the field of HIV and AIDS research over the past 40 years. Dr. Narayan began his professional career as a practicing large animal veterinarian in the Canadian Midwest. After developing an interest in virus infections in animals, he earned his PhD at the University of Guelph, Ontario, Canada. Following discovery of HIV infections in humans, Dr. Narayan participated in developing the animal model of HIV infection, which was used to study AIDS as well as HIV dementia. While at Johns Hopkins, he developed a multi-disciplinary research program aimed at studying the disease and in development of a vaccine against the virus. Dr. Narayan was recruited to the University of Kansas School of Medicine in 1993, where he extended his program studying HIV disease and vaccine development. He became chairman of the Department of Microbiology, Molecular Genetics and Immunology in the School of Medicine in 1999 and was the director of both the COBRE program at KU Medical Center and the MMD Laboratory of Viral Pathogenesis. Dr. Narayan, as a veterinarian and virologist gained national attention several years ago when he was able to adapt an HIV virus for use in monkeys, which imitated the disease's effect in humans, therefore speeding up the research process. Using the "SHIV", Narayan was able to test a variety of vaccines, including one which is hoped to be used in human trials in the near future.
In the latest research, while Narayan's vaccine did not stop the monkeys from becoming infected with the animal's version of HIV, it was successfully demonstrated that the animals did not become ill following the infection. Narayan had said that he hoped to create a vaccine that would help millions of poor people around the world fight the deadly virus, hoping an easy-to-administer, less costly treatment would be benefit in poorer countries with less access to antiviral drugs.
RSS